Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb announced Wednesday that he will not run for a second term in 2012.

In a statement, Webb said, "After much thought and consideration I have decided to return to the private sector, where I have spent most of my professional life, and will not seek re-election in 2012."

Webb entered the 2006 race late in the cycle, and his victory was sealed by a combination of gaffes on the part of his GOP opponent, then-Sen. George Allen, and a hefty lift by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, then led by New York Sen. Charles Schumer.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee rejoiced at the news, pointing out that Webb's retirement makes the GOP's chances at a pickup opportunity in Virginia much easier.

"While there is no doubt Republicans will field a strong leader as our nominee, Democrats will have great difficulty finding an electable candidate for this open seat as Virginians continue to reject their agenda of higher taxes and reckless spending," said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh.

"We can only hope that Democrats succeed in recruiting President Obama's number one cheerleader in Washington - Tim Kaine," he added.

Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee and one of President Obama's top three choices for vice president in 2008, may be a contender for the seat. Former Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello, a favorite of the Obama administration for his votes in favor of big-ticket items on their agenda, is also a possible Democratic candidate.

Webb has not been a prolific fundraiser in the past, and since the DSCC's help in 2006 only yielded one term for a Democrat, the party may look to get a stronger fundraiser into the race for the coming cycle.

Republicans already face a primary between Allen, who is trying to make a political comeback, and Jamie Radtke, a tea party leader. GOP sources expect more candidates to enter the race.

Call it the first scuffle between the camps of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who are likely to go head-to-head for a similar slice of the GOP primary electorate if they both run for president this cycle.

It's a college rivalry: Here comes the battle of the student draft movements.

Not long before the already-formed Students for Daniels draft organization started airing TV ads in Iowa in New Hampshire, up popped Students for Mitt. And yes, there will be scores on Saturday. The annual CPAC straw poll in Washington, D.C., will survey conservative activists about who is their top choice for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday and Friday. Results will be released on Saturday. Students from both groups plan to attend the conference, vote in the straw poll and round up more supporters.

And for added delicious irony: The draft Daniels effort is headquartered at Yale in New England, where Romney lives, whereas the Mitt movement is based out of Vanderbilt in Tennessee, where Daniels spent part of his childhood.

Vanderbilt University junior Garrett Sweitzer, said he started organizing "Students for Mitt" several weeks ago, when he had not yet heard about the effort to draft Daniels that began last fall.

The student groups have slightly different motivations, anyway. Romney is putting a campaign together now, while Daniels is still mulling over the possibility.

Consequently, Sweitzer explained, "The goal of ‘Students for Mitt' is not to get Mitt to run; he will decide to run regardless of whether he has student support. We're trying to draft student support for him that can be mobilized later and be in place to get out the vote."

The Daniels group formed a PAC that has raised a little money and plans to air more TV advertising in advance of the Indiana governor's appearance at CPAC on Friday night to help get the Hoosier some buzz. Max Eden, the Yale student who founded the group, said Students for Daniels will bring to CPAC about 50 people armed with t-shirts, palm cards and buttons to make their presence known.

The Romney student group launched a Facebook page and has been spreading awareness through word of mouth. Sweitzer is headed to the Beltway today to gin up support on the George Washington University and American University campuses in Washington and round up students to hit the CPAC conference on Thursday and Friday and parade around in Students for Mitt gear. He said he's got about 75 students committed to hand out literature and whip up votes.

The match will be on display Saturday when the straw poll votes are tabulated.

CPAC director Lisa DePasquale said between 10,000 and 11,000 conservative activists register for the conservative confab each year, and about 5,000 of those attendees are students who are eligible to vote in the straw poll.

"For students, it's sort of like their spring break," DePasquale said.

Part of the attraction for students is that a college ID gets them into the conference for just $35, a steal compared to the $175 three-day conference fee for other attendees. And for the Republican Party, which generally lags behind Democrats in courting the youth vote, CPAC's discounted student rate helps the cause.

Young Conservatives Coalition President Christopher Malagisi said in part for that reason, the straw poll is mostly student-driven.

"Students tend to be more excited than the adults attending to vote in the straw poll because voting is generally new to them," he said. "They get to come to CPAC and see their heroes who they've seen on FOX News speak live for the first time."

But Malagisi pointed out that Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president in 2008, won the straw poll last year with 31 percent of the vote and has performed well in smaller straw polls in the last few years. For that reason, Malagisi said, activists may not take the results very seriously.

Of course, Romney won the 2007 CPAC straw poll and had organized support for it just as he was launching his first presidential run. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani trailed him by just four percentage points. Romney repeated the performance with a larger share of the vote in 2008, just two days after he conceded the presidential race onstage at the CPAC conference, and he came out on top again for a three-peat in 2009. Romney was second to Paul last year with 22 percent of the vote.

Daniels scored 2 percent of the straw poll vote in 2010. He did not speak at CPAC last year.

This year, there's one critical difference to remember as Romney and Daniels compete in the straw poll: Romney will speak at the conference on Friday morning, before straw poll voting closes at 5:00 pm that afternoon. Daniels will speak Friday evening, several hours after voting ends.

This year's Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., will feature speeches by no less than 10 potential Republican presidential candidates, legions of young activists who will arrive from around the country to network and seek inspiration, and massive media attention befitting its location in the center of the political journalism universe.

But when the three-day annual gathering of conservative activists and interest groups kicks off on Thursday, one lesser-known organization will generate some outsized attention.

GOProud, a group that advocates for gay conservatives and their supporters, is cosponsoring this year's conference. Socially conservative groups including the Family Research Council and Liberty Counsel have spoken out against GOProud's participation and are among several organizations that will not have a presence at CPAC after having accused the event of driving a wedge through the conservative movement by promoting small-government economic principles while de-emphasizing moral values.

GOProud Board Chairman Chris Barron said that despite the protests, his group has received an overwhelmingly positive response from other conservative activists who are planning to attend CPAC and that the mainstream media has overhyped the "boycott" by a small number of organizations.

"The truth is that it's five boycotters and 10,000 people who are attending the conference, so we're celebrating the 10,000 people and not the five who are boycotting," Barron said. "It would be a little like us announcing we were boycotting the DNC, even though we never participating in it. Most of the organizations speaking out weren't CPAC sponsors last year, so who the hell cares if they're boycotting, quite frankly?"

GOProud plans to set up a booth inside the conference, and its members will hand out literature and speak with attendees, as is typical of these events. But its signature mark on the conference will be the party the group is hosting on Thursday night with conservative media titan Andrew Breitbart, who has been an outspoken supporter of GOProud and its participation at CPAC.

Formed in 2009, GOProud espouses small-government economic views and favors a robust national security apparatus, but its advocacy for the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the U.S. military has drawn fire recently from social conservatives.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a likely Republican presidential candidate who is scheduled to speak at CPAC on Friday, fell under withering criticism from the group when he called for taking steps to try to block the repeal during a recent visit to Iowa.

Asked about why he had singled out Pawlenty in his previous criticism, Barron did not back down an inch.

"He doesn't hold the same standing as leaders like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, or Herman Cain. That's just the truth," Barron said. "If you held two competing parties among movement conservatives -- one for Tim Pawlenty and one for Herman Cain -- there'd be ten times as many people at the Herman Cain party."

In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who declined an invitation to speak at CPAC, defended GOProud's participation in the conference.

"I look at participation in an event like CPAC, or any other event... in that same vein as the more information that people have, the better," Palin said.

The American Principles Project, which has called on conservative groups to boycott CPAC, responded to Palin in a press release on Monday by calling on her to "clarify her remarks."

The Heritage Foundation is one of the most prominent conservative groups that plans to avoid this year's CPAC amid the controversy. A spokesman for the Washington think tank said that his organization has concerns about CPAC's dedication to promoting the coalition among economic, social, and national security conservatives.

"You can chose to care more about one of those three issues than the other two -- that's fine," said Heritage's VP of communications Mike Gonzalez. "But once you decide to go against any one of them, we have a problem."

Gonzalez said that Heritage's decision not to attend this year's CPAC "was not in response to any one event," and he took umbrage with the generally held assmption that CPAC is the most important annual gathering among the conservative grassroots.

Gonzalez added that Heritage could attend CPAC in future years but stressed that the group lends its presence to many other events to promote the conservative cause.

"There's a lack of clarity -- we're confused about what CPAC is about," he said. "We hope that CPAC begins to more clearly define which principles it wishes to promote."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is making another trip to Iowa to gauge his level of support for a potential presidential campaign, RealClearPolitics has learned.

Gingrich, who is sounding more and more like he is leaning toward a run for the White House, will meet with doctors and nurses as part of a tour of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City on Saturday, Feb. 12.

Gingrich's latest trip to the nation's first voting state will be his ninth since the beginning of last year.

The former speaker does not have any public events scheduled for this weekend's trip, but his advocacy group, American Solutions, is organizing a meeting with approximately 25 small business owners and entrepreneurs who live in and around the university town.

Gingrich has presided over similar "listening sessions" in other cities as he has traveled the country over the past year to lay the preliminary groundwork for a national campaign.

On his previous Iowa trip late last month, Gingrich visited Des Moines and spoke at the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association. During that speech, Gingrich launched a critique of the Wall Street Journal editorial board's stance against the ethanol subsidies for which he has long advocated.

"Obviously big urban newspapers want to kill it because it's working, and you wonder, 'What are their values?'" Gingrich said, according to the Journal.

Gingrich's comments promptly drew a rebuttal from the Journal, which accused him in an editorial of pandering to Iowa's voters and suggested that his "ethanol lobbying raises larger questions about his convictions and judgment."

As fallout from his battle with the influential editorial board began to grow in conservative media circles, Gingrich shot back in a letter to the editor of the Journal, taking umbrage with the newspaper's questioning of his motives. "My support of increased domestic energy production of all forms, including biofuels and domestic drilling, is born out of our urgent national security and economic needs," Gingrich wrote.

Before making his latest Iowa excursion, Gingirch is slated to speak on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Gingrich's appearance at the annual conference will be sandwiched between speeches by two other potential presidential hopefuls: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

Gingrich will travel to New Hampshire next month for a lighthearted charity breakfast in Nashua, which has traditionally been well-attended by political activists in the nation's first primary state.

The former speaker has said that he is aiming to make a decision about whether to mount a presidential run by the end of this month.

As Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour steps up his efforts to explore a possible presidential run, he faces one question that none of the other prospective candidates will have to address: can a back-slapping, Ole Miss Rebels fan with a molasses-rich drawl connect on a human level with caucus-goers and primary voters whose cultural roots are far from Yazoo City?

Though his Deep South persona and good ol' boy reputation are often cited as significant drawbacks for Barbour in the first voting states, Republican operatives and officials in Iowa and New Hampshire point to a bevy of historical and anecdotal evidence which suggests that he could do just fine navigating the snowy fields surrounding Sioux City or shaking hands with voters at a Dunkin' Donuts in Bedford, New Hampshire.

Iowa State Senator Bill Dix, who remains one of the more coveted endorsements in the State Capitol among 2012 GOP hopefuls, said that the vast majority of Iowa voters are more concerned about leadership qualities than regional traits.

"It may be a bigger issue with the general population, but as far as caucus-goers are concerned, they connect with people that are personable and bring forward new ideas and approaches that create enthusiasm," Dix said. "Those who would suggest that Barbour's being from the Deep South is a handicap, I think, are overstating the case."

One need only look at former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's victory in the most recent caucuses to find the latest evidence that a Southern politician can be successful in Iowa. Southern presidents Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush also saw their paths to the White House run through Iowa.

It could easily be argued that largely rural and culturally conservative Iowa shares much more of a natural kinship with states south of the Mason-Dixon line, but it is far more difficult to make that case when it comes to New Hampshire, where the makeup of the Republican primary electorate is vastly different than that of any Southern state.

"It is the case that a good number of New Hampshire Republicans see the national Republican Party as too Southern and too religiously conservative," said University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala. "I think that's something that Barbour or any Southern Republican governor would have to contend with, but I don't know that you look at Barbour necessarily and say that he's a religious right candidate in the way you would perhaps with Mike Huckabee."

Huckabee struggled to a distant third-place finish in the 2008 New Hampshire primary, just five days after his resounding victory in Iowa.

Still, Jimmy Carter's victory in the 1976 New Hampshire primary and the strong second-place showing that then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton achieved in 1992 prove that a thick Southern accent is not an insurmountable obstacle when it comes to winning over Yankee Republicans who may never have been to a megachurch or enjoyed a mint julep.

"The daunting part perhaps for someone like Barbour who's so well-known inside the beltway and in national Republican elite circles is, are you willing to go to New Hampshire and face the fact that day after day, you're virtually unknown, and you're going to have to humble yourself and introduce voters who don't know who you are and don't much care?" Scala said. "You get the sense that not a lot of activists are signed up yet, so it's nothing that some calls from the candidate himself couldn't necessarily cure. New Hampshire Republicans are always looking for what's new out there, and they're also looking for personal attention."

Key New Hampshire GOP operatives have thus far come away with mixed perceptions on how much of an early push Barbour is making in the Granite State. Some have heard nothing from his political orbit, while others say that people close to the governor have made preliminary inquiries to get the lay of the land.

Jamie Burnett, who ran Romney's New Hampshire political operation in 2008 but is currently unaligned with any prospective 2012 candidate, agreed that Barbour's Deep South roots would not be a major issue for him if he decides to campaign in the nation's first primary state.

"The problem for Barbour right now is that he's not here, and no one knows him -- there are candidates with a great deal more name recognition and popular support," Burnett said. "Barbour needs to begin to develop an organization here sooner rather than later. If he wants to compete for the space that's currently occupied, he needs to start doing that now."

Barbour traveled to New Hampshire in September of 2010 to campaign on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate John Stephen but has no future trips to the state on his current agenda. He recently held private meetings with key Republicans in South Carolina -- a state that could become a near-must win for him if he were to enter the presidential race.

If investment advisers have any intention of getting paid to advise public pension plans in either Indiana or Mississippi over the next several years, many of their employees will have to be careful about how much campaign money they give to Republican Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's new, so-called "pay to play" restrictions that penalize investment advisers for donating money to certain politicians have election lawyers wondering how much candidate fundraising will suffer in 2012 - particularly when it comes to the potential presidential efforts of Daniels and Barbour. The scope of the rules is broad and extends to the indirect activities of investment advisers. However, some interested parties highlight the fact that investment advisers represent only a small portion of the fundraising pool from which candidates can draw.

Under the new rules, investment advisers will be prohibited from managing a state's public funds for two years after they or their influential employees make high-dollar campaign contributions to officials in that state who have any power over its funds. It doesn't matter whether a state official directly oversees a fund or can appoint someone who does; either way, investment advisers interested in obtaining contracts for those funds cannot donate more than $150 to their campaigns in a cycle. The limit goes up to $350 if the investment adviser actually lives in the official's state.

"The reason this is a big deal is because the penalty is such a disincentive that it creates a chilling effect," said Charlie Spies, a Republican attorney who has advised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential presidential candidate. As a former governor, Romney's fundraising will not be affected by the SEC's new rules.

The SEC passed the new rules unanimously in June in response to scandals rooted in New York in which officials accepted kickbacks for awarding government contracts.

The rules, which take effect in March, also apply to announced candidates who are seeking those state offices. And even when state officials are seeking federal office, if they have direct or indirect control over their state's public funds at the time, they're still out of luck.

Daniels has a direct role on a board that oversees some public funds in the Hoosier State, and Barbour appointed his chief of staff to sit on a board that oversees the public retirement fund in Mississippi, meaning both potential presidential contenders' campaign accounts could take a hit from the new rules.

In the presidential race, they appear to be the only two politicians in the still-forming field who could be affected by the rule. President Obama is not affected, and the rest of the GOP field is populated by former officials and a senator, none of whom have to worry about the rules.

It remains to be seen how deeply the rules will shape the money chase in the impending GOP presidential primary. A number of sources say that while the giving trends of investment advisers have tended to favor Democrats, there's a growing interest in the industry for two potential Republican candidates: Romney, who isn't affected by the rules, and Daniels, who is.

Of course, the rules affect candidates down the ballot and across the country, so Barbour and Daniels are not alone. Take Indiana, for example. Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock plans to challenge Republican Sen. Dick Lugar in a primary, so Mourdock's role on the same board on which Daniels sits that oversees a state fund impairs the treasurer's ability to raise money from this part of the financial services industry. If Republican Rep. Mike Pence runs for governor, he'll face the same complication given the governor's role on the board and the fact that candidates for affected offices are included.

In neighboring Ohio, Treasurer Josh Mandel has the authority to appoint an investment designee to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees. Mandel, a Republican, is a potential opponent for Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, and investment advisers would be subject to penalty if they donated substantial contributions to him for the Senate race.

The reason why fundraisers and attorneys are uncertain about how big of an impact the new rules will have is because no one knows yet how many potential donors it may limit.

Under the rules, investment advisers and their employees cannot solicit contributions for candidates from others. Any employee who manages money for an investment adviser cannot attach his or her name to a host committee for a large fundraising event to support an affected candidate.

Spies explained, "It affects the ability of these people to act as bundlers."

But Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner who recently joined Sphere Consulting, does not think the provision will have big impacts on candidates' bottom lines in 2012.

He pointed out that political giving is up across the board and activists across the country are energized, so candidate fundraising isn't going to dry up simply because the SEC rule will impinge on a portion of the financial services industry.

So far, advisers to Barbour and Daniels are unfazed.

One explained that both sixtysomethings have penetrated the political system for more than three decades and can scare up campaign contributions elsewhere.

Otherwise, any candidate hoping to collect maxed-out donations from investment advisers who would be subject to the rules has about six weeks left to do so. The rules take effect on March 14.

In the meantime, election attorneys are scrambling to put together compliance plans for investment advisory firms in order to prevent penalization.

He may have lost his campaign to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in November, but evidence is mounting to suggest that Alaskans have not seen the last of Joe Miller.

Miller rode a wave of tea party support to upset Murkowski in the state's Republican Senate primary before falling to her write-in general election campaign. But rather than returning quietly to his Fairbanks law office, Miller is looking into keeping his fundraising ability in tact by forming a political action committee.

"He has considered the possibility of starting a PAC and has been exploring that," Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto told RealClearPolitics. "And he wants to stay involved in the political discourse as far as holding leaders accountable and living up to tea party ideals."

DeSoto said that Miller would likely take on some public speaking engagements as he gauges the best way to move forward.

Miller's defeat of Murkowski in the GOP primary was one of the biggest upsets of the 2010 midterm elections, and the high-profile support he earned from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin added an additional level of intrigue as the general election race took a series of unexpected twists and turns, culminating in Murkowski's write-in victory.

Miller's campaign suffered from a series of public relations gaffes that culminated in an embarrassing episode in which a member of the candidate's private security team handcuffed a reporter who was aggressively questioning Miller after an event.

As a re-energized Murkowksi gained steam throughout the fall, Miller's Election Day loss led to his decision to embark on a nearly two-month legal challenge that ended with Murkowski's victory being upheld.

But the energy Miller generated from grassroots activists in the state was undeniable, and the Yale Law School graduate and Army combat veteran will look to enhance his image and extend his political base as he considers a 2012 primary challenge to Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who has held the state's only House seat for 38 years.

"He certainly hasn't closed that door," DeSoto said when asked about a possible campaign against Young. "That's something he could consider."

DeSoto confirmed that a challenge to Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), whose term is up in 2014, was "another possibility" for Miller.

CNN reported on Wednesday that Miller's latest Federal Election Commission filing shows that he has $825,000 on hand -- a hefty sum in the world of Alaska politics -- which represents contributions left over from both his election battle and court challenge. DeSoto noted that some of those remaining funds will be used to pay remaining legal costs.

When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney re-released his most recent political book on Tuesday, there was a little-noticed change.

It wasn't that it's a paperback version; that was widely publicized. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom even mentioned on Twitter recently, "All you reporters without an expense account, Romney's No Apology goes on sale in paperback Tues, Feb. 1."

The more interesting change is the title.

When Romney's book was released last year, it was entitled, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.

The new title is No Apology: Believe in America.

"The title of the book is the same," Fehrnstrom said. "But for marketing purposes, we changed the subtitle to call attention to the new introduction which contains the “Believe in America” theme. It helps to sell more books."

But could "Believe in America" be the new Romney campaign slogan as he gets ready to launch his second bid for the presidency?

It very well may be, considering one of the biggest criticisms of the 2008 Romney campaign was that the Republican really never settled on the way to sell himself, and his message suffered as a result. While he has not announced yet but has started hiring staff, developing a concrete and positive message likely topped his list.

In 2008, the winning message belonged to Barack Obama: "Change you can believe in."

For Romney, the next iteration that he hopes will win just may be, "Believe in America."

Montana Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg is expected to jump into the 2012 Senate race against Democratic incumbent Jon Tester with an announcement on Saturday.

Rehberg is a recruiting coup for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which views Tester among their top targets next year.

Former NRSC chairman John Ensign of Nevada tried relentlessly to get Rehberg into the race in 2008 against Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee who ushered health care reform through the Senate last year. Ensign joked in a press conference in the summer of 2008 that he saw Rehberg in the Capitol regularly and told him he was still mad at him for not making the race.

As a freshman who may not have the same kind of pull in Washington that Baucus does as the chairman of a powerful committee, Tester might be an easier target.

Yet, while Tester may have a tough race in what is traditionally a red state in a presidential election year, he may be tougher to beat than Republicans expect.

For one thing, Tester became something of a national sensation from his upset 2006 victory against then Republican Sen. Conrad Burns. His star power lasted through the 2008 campaign when he became a surrogate for other populist Senate candidates from his party - much like Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown did in 2010.

Tester campaigned for Senate candidates in Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Oregon in 2008 - and five of those states featured Democrats winning in tough elections.

His notoriety blossomed in 2008 during the national economic recession when he reminded financial executives testifying at a hearing that he was a farmer, showing his populist roots.

And the New York Times wrote a short editorial about the senator over the summer, praising him for going home to his farm to raise wheat rather than raise money for his next election.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pounced on Rehberg in a statement this afternoon with a more specific argument than they've made against potential candidates already this cycle.

"Congressman Rehberg has been in Washington for ten years and has nothing to show for it. He's got a record long on spending but short on accomplishments. Rehberg has taken on 9/11 heroes and sued Montana firefighters," said communications director Eric Schultz.

Rehberg and Tester start off on relatively even footing in the money chase, however.

As of the end of last year, Tester had about $560,000 in the bank to Rehberg's $553,000.

For the prospective field of Republican presidential candidates, a trip to Israel is quickly becoming a near prerequisite as top-tier contenders with little direct foreign policy experience look to brandish their credentials on the international stage before the demands of a grueling campaign keep them tied up domestically.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney began the Holy Land parade last month, holding a private meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during part of a larger Middle East trip.

Next, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- who has been outspoken in his advocacy for allowing Jewish settlements to be built in Palestinian-held lands -- arrived in Israel last weekend for an extended trip that also included a visit with Netanyahu.

And on Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition announced that it was sponsoring a trip for Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour to Israel next weekend when he will meet with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders.

"I think it's important for political leaders to have an opportunity to see firsthand and experience and hear from the leadership in Israel as to what's going on in a particularly complex and vitally important region of the world," Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director Matt Brooks said. "We have requests in to all the folks that are being talked about running for president in 2012."

The high-profile visits to America's closest ally in the Middle East come at a heightened time of tension in the region, as fears mount that Islamic fundamentalists could gain power in Egypt in the wake of the uprising there.

Huckabee told Fox News on Tuesday that there was "more than a little bit of concern" in Israel on a day when he met with Netanyahu, members of the Israeli Knesset and European Parliament members.

"There is real anxiety," Huckabee said. "I would call it just short of panic."

Presidential prospects have long made trips to Israel in advance of launching their campaigns in order to introduce themselves to its leaders and learn about the country and the surrounding region on the ground.

Michael Franc, the vice president for government relations at the Heritage Foundation, said that the imagery that comes with trips to Israel can also offer clear political benefits, particularly for governors who are trying to pass the commander-in-chief test.

"Within the context of the Republican primary electorate, there are a lot of evangelical Christians who have a special love and affection for Israel, so there may be a logical political connection there," Frank said. "But that's probably secondary to the primary concern, which is that the Middle East is now -- along with Eastern Asia -- the primary field of engagement for the U.S. in the world. So if you want to be president, you have to include a working knowledge of the Middle East and how Israel fits in with its neighboring countries."

The RJC says that it has placed inquiries with all of the prospective GOP presidential candidates about making future trips to Israel, and the organization's official Twitter account on Tuesday reached out publicly to an aide with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who visited Israel in December of 2008.

Aides to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have told RealClearPolitics that a trip to Israel is high on the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee's agenda, and the RJC is anxious to help facilitate it.

"I really hope we can get her over there," Matt Brooks said of Palin. "We've been in discussions, and I know she wants to go."